The Mindanao Week of Peace is an annual activity that was initiated in Zamboanga City by Peace Advocates Zamboanga Foundation, Inc. (PAZ) and SALAM Foundation in 1997. It later snowballed into a Mindanao-wide event as adopted by the Bishops-Ulama Conference and became an annual activity as mandated by Presidential Proclamation 127 in 2001.

Interfaith religious leaders of Iligan City will start the celebration on November 26 with a prayer rally which will be attended by Muslim and Christian leaders, said Arlene Dinoyo, of the office of the  BUC here.

Dinoyo said there will also be convergence of interfaith communities in Tubod, Lanao del Norte.

Juanito Enriquez Jr., program officer of the Civil Society for Peace and Democracy (CSPD), said  peace advocates in Iligan will host a forum on disaster risk reduction on December 2 which will be participated by representatives of government agencies, food chains and non-government organizations.

“A forum on women, human rights and security will also be done,” Enriquez said.  

Preciosa Derro, peacebuilding programme coordinator of Ecoweb Inc.,  said peace advocates in Lanao del Norte will conduct a historical journey in Lanao Norte province, Misamis Oriental and Zamboanga del Sur dubbed Lawig Handuraw sa Mindanao to revisit sites formerly occupied by Spanish and American soldiers “to enhance historical consciousness for unity and better understanding among various faith and ethnic groups in their common historical struggles.”

Derro said that they will visit the sites of battles, the forts and the stories of the martyrs and heroes. This, she said, will be retold with emphasis on the understanding of why those events happened so we can discover lessons that can help rebuild and strengthen the relationship of the present generation.”

Among the participants of this journey are students, teachers, people’s  organizations business sector, government officials of Iligan and Lanao del Norte to enable them to integrate the history of Northern Mindanao in school curricula and in the program of the communal tourism offices as Histo-Eco-Tourism. 

Derro said that sites to be revisited are Fort Francisco Xavier (now the Iligan City Plaza), Fort Victoria (now the Cañons in City Central School), Shrine of Saber Saradapan in Linamon town, Fort Almonte at Bacolod Town of Lanao del Norte, Fort Ozamiz and Fort Alfonso III.

“There will also be public viewing of video-documentaries on historical sites in schools and universities, screening of the videos in buses of rural bus company in Mindanao,” Derro added.

Another consortium of non-government organizations organized Panaw sa Kalinaw for national peace and human rights mission to Northern Mindanao in the name of land, life and solidarity. Such is a parcel of the Mindanao Week of Peace celebration.

“Panaw Kalinaw (Exodus for Peace) was originally launched as a peace mission on March 2009 that gave documentation and other relevant services to the war-torn areas of Quezon, Bukidnon. A month after, a similar peace mission was held in the hinterlands of Gingoog City in Misamis Oriental that investigated the massacre of the Suarez Family and the forcible evacuation of the civilian populace and other violations of human rights and international humanitarian law brought by the intermittent armed confrontations between the government troops and the communist insurgents,” said JR Mendoza, head of the secretariat of Panaw Kalinaw.

Mendoza explained that the mission is coupled with “our prayers and our loud calls for the people in our region parallel to the observance of the Week of Peace. At these most crucial times of violence and inequity, we are again called to defend the oppressed, to be on the side of truth—because there can be no peace without human rights.”

Panaw Kalinaw is convened by lawyer Beverly Musni of Karapatan; Datu  Jomorito Goaynon of Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization; Sister Elsa Compuesto of Sisters’ Association in Mindanao; and lawyer Federico Gapuz of Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao.
Mendoza said the group will be holding a human rights mission in the villages of Esperanza, Agusan del Sur and Malaybalay, Bukidnon—two of the many areas where Oplan Bantay Laya reared its deadliest head—on November 29 to December 1. It will culminate in a Regional Peace and Human Rights Summit on December 2 in Cagayan de Oro City.”

He said the objective is “to show national and interfaith solidarity to the victims and communities of the mainly-Lumad villages of Agsabo and St. Peters. We will be investigating the escalating human rights violations reported, and will provide documentation, relief, medical and psycho-social services to the above-mentioned communities.”

”It’s also an opportunity to immerse with the Lumad communities and listen to their stories on development aggression and militarization in an Interfaith Solidarity Program. They will have the chance to join the Lumads in their customary rituals to welcome visitors,” Mendoza reported.

The mission will be joined by Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization, Karapatan Northern Mindanao, Katribu party list, Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN), Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) Northern Mindanao Sub-Region, Community-Based Health Services (CBHS) Northern Mindanao,  Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) Northern Mindanao and Suara Bangsamoro Northern Mindanao.

The historical journey in Lanao is supported by Nonviolent Peace Force, Province of Lanao del Norte, Department of Education, Department of Tourism, Civil Societies, German Development Service, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, Institute for Peace and Development in Mindanao and Rural Transit Mindanao. (Violeta M. Gloria/MindaNews)

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